Woolfenden, William E. (William Edward), 1918-1995

William Woolfenden (1918-1995) was from Detroit, Mich. and New York, N.Y. and an art administrator and director of the Archives of American Art.

From the description of Oral history interview with William Woolfenden, 1983 Mar. 17 [sound recording]. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 84558209

Art administrator, museum director, art historian. Died 1995.

From the description of William E. Woolfenden papers, 1938-1956. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 122515054

From the description of William E. Woolfenden papers, 1938-1967. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 779476909

William E. Woolfenden, Art administrator; director, Archives of American Art; Detroit, Mich. and New York, N.Y.; d. 1995.

From the description of Oral history interview with William E. Woolfenden and Irving Burton, 1992 Dec. 12 [sound recording]. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 83609100

William E. Woolfenden, who was born in Detroit and received bachelor and master's degrees from Wayne State University, served as the Director of Education at the Detroit Institute of Arts. A scholar of American Art, Woolfenden teamed up with Lawrence A. Fleischman, a wealthy Detroit businessman and art collector, and in 1954 they founded the Archives of American Art, initially as an adjunct to the Detroit Museum. Woolfenden was named assistant director in 1960, and later became the archives first full-time director. From his Manhattan base, Woolfenden spent the next nineteen years building what would become the world's largest archive devoted to American art with a collection totaling 400,000 photographs and over 10 million primary-source documents. The archives eventually joined the Smithsonian Institution in 1970 and had research centers in Boston, Washington, and San Francisco, in addition to Detroit. After serving nineteen years as director of the Smithsonian Institution's Archives of American Art, Woolfenden retired in 1983 and died in 1995 in New Haven Connecticut at the age of 77.

From the description of William E. Woolfenden papers, undated. (Detroit Public Library). WorldCat record id: 664246326

Art administrator; New York, N.Y.

Director of the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Died 1995.

From the description of William E. Woolfenden interviews, 1970 and 1983. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 83826312